Wisdom Quotes
17 quotes on wisdom, with Henry David Thoreau, Oscar Wilde, Buddha among the most quoted here. Tap an author to see all of their quotes, or browse other themes.
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
Long credited to Albert Einstein; it first appears in Wheeler's 1979 account of Einstein's "three rules of work".
"Know thyself."
Inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi; often credited to Socrates.
"I neither know nor think that I know."
Plato, Apology 21d (Jowett translation), the source of the paraphrase "the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing".
"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom."
"These three things shine for all to see, not hidden: the disk of the moon, the disk of the sun, and the Dhamma and Vinaya of a Tathagata."
Anguttara Nikaya 3.131 (Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation), the source of the paraphrase "three things cannot be long hidden".
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
"Appearances are of four kinds: things either are as they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be."
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
From Meditations in Wall Street (1940); often misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."
Walden (1854), Economy.
"Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes."
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892).
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate."
Aion (1951), the source of the paraphrase "until you make the unconscious conscious".
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that."
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."